mmmmmm hott

i want me one of these please! of course, i'd have nothing to talk to him about.... would need much much much brushing up on my classical music first. but really. gorgeous, venezuelan, and extremely talented! hott. with two ts.

last day of nablopomo

i've actually been meaning to do this since the first day....

whenever i say nablopomo it makes me think of a place i visited last summer, casa na bolom in san cristobal in chiapas, mexico. sounds similar, right? it's a beautiful place, and if i go back, i may splurge and spend at least a couple nights staying there instead of in a hostel.

na bolom was the home of danish anthropologist and archaeologist frans blom and his swiss wife gertrude, herself a conservationist, journalist, sociologist, and photographer. it's filled with images of their life exploring the lacandon jungle, objects they collected, and books they read. in the back is a native plants garden, with wonderful little benches where i sat and read anna karenina and wrote postcards. completely peaceful. and all profits go to conserving the jungle they cared so much about.

wonderful library, too. i didn't spend enough time in it to figure out how it's organized, but again, if chiapas becomes my focal point in the future, and especially if anthropological history stays central to my studies, this will become a necessary resource.

i can't believe i only have this one photo of it, and it's just of the garden, but look at the website for more!

i love peter sagal!

and i love facebook. and when peter sagal talks about facebook, i love it even more.


oh balding middle aged men and being your own other drummer.

implicated.

a graduate student, 29, who had just defended his dissertation and was set to receive his degree a week from now, was shot and killed here the week before thanksgiving. the same night, three other students were held up and a fourth fled before the robbers reached him. the student who was killed had no money on him and the others only a few dollars and credit cards.

today the police arrested a 16 year old for the murder and robberies, to which he has admitted complicity. he claims that he was not the one who shot the graduate student, but has said that it was his idea to set out on a robbery spree in the first place, rounding up friends to accompany him along the way.

16. how clearly this brings into perspective where i live. 16. his home is probably no more than 20 minutes away. 16. african american. single mother. sophomore in high school.

am i happy that he's in custody? that he's off the streets? that he won't be shooting any of my friends? that justice will be served and the graduate student's killer punished? is this what they call white guilt?

i hate that he is 16. i hate that he lives so close to our gargoyled and gothic towers. the monstrosity of a library full of books that explain who he is and how he came to shoot a graduate student. from senegal. on scholarship. about to go home and do good, change his world.

prunway night!

i love prunway i love prunway i love prunway!

and i totally guessed tonight's winner and loser on fantasy runway! i'm sooooo good.

spoilers below - sorry krb!

Not that I agreed with the winner - none of them did remarkably well, but i would have chosen kevin, i think. In fact, i agree that this is the hardest challenge they've had so far and i think they all failed rather miserably at doing anything original. but, you know what, making men's wear is very very very difficult - there's no room for forgiveness. in women's wear, if something doesn't fit right, take off the sleeve, add a belt, drape a little, and you can make it work. you don't have to be able to fit a crotch or set a sleeve. but men's wear requires all of that. so for the fact that no one went down that runway without pants or topless, cheers to them! especially considering that they had to do something dressy - a knit shirt wouldn't have been so difficult to whip together (see eliza), but dress shirts and sports coats .... well, they take time. especially if you havent done them before, dont have a mannequin with arms.

anyways, carmen was too ambitions and just failed. had either of those pieces worked, she might have saved herself. but both were ridiculously sad. jack - not so exciting and far too many stripes for my taste, but congratulations on the nice bias pockets and button placket!

don't really remember many in the middle, but i'm very happy that sweet pea stayed and i think that there were a couple others that should have been out there for bottom three, had things been otherwise....

little things to avoid doing work

i passed my language exam! so long as i can get my paper turned in in march, i'll get my masters in june! wahoo!

also, my new down coat showed up today and it's wonderful and lighter than a feather and perfect and i'm keeping it.

i bought fresh mozzerella at the grocery store tonight and it is a wonderful thing.

i have watched four episodes of alias tonight instead of doing reading. i did get some done this afternoon, but not enough. papers due a week from tomorrow. i'm a dumb ass procrastinator. who will not be prepared for class tomorrow. i'll be nauseous anyways, so ill just huddle and not talk.

bc is making me nauseous. and head achey. and i don't like it.

i very much enjoyed this article today.

read this book yesterday and very much recommend it. wish i'd read it over a longer period of time, but i really think it provides some of the best summaries of european and american philosophy i've read. much clearer than profs, than friends (sorry xwn), and whatever attempts i've made to understand it through reading the stuff itself.


enjoy!

dress debates

as have much much to do in the next 9 days before i leave for boston, decided to get one out of the way today that would just stress me out more later - finding a dress for the ball. thus, instead of going to the library after work, i went downtown to filene's basement (such a disappointment compared to the boston one!), nordstrom rack, and macy's. 4 hour shopping trip. utterly exhausting. but did find a dress, even if i'm not 100% in love with it and spent a little more than i had planned, especially for a dress that i'm not passionate about.

anyways. here it is:



it was more on sale at the store than it is on the web, but still $100 (which is a lot for me, especially seeing as how the best dress ever only cost $50). it has pockets, a cute print, is actually a brighter purple and floofier than in the picture, and screams for shiny black patent leather heels and big jewelry, which i shall have to find. buttons, cute skinny sash, and flattering cut on me (despite being much much bustier than the model), but the neckline is a little off and, of course, my arms look wretchedly flabby. but oh well. that's going to happen with any dress.

the plan is this: i will take the dress, with tags still attached and receipt safely guarded in my wallet, to boston with me. i will contemplate it. i will take it shopping with me at the boston filene's and macy's, wherein i will decide if it should be returned and replaced. i will be vaguely sorry to be mean to such a pretty dress, which would be perfect for many a winter party, but may just not have the stuff to make it at the ball. either way, i will not style my hair the way this model has.

in the next ten days i have to:

contemplate this dress some more
read 3 books for class discussion
write a 15 p historiography paper for my guatemala project
write a 10 p paper on as yet unknown subject for colonialism/poco
get my hair cut
digitize all the primary sources i have to avoid carting 20lbs of books home
find presents for my dad and friends i'm visiting
continue going to work/maybe finish cataloguing the library
not get sick. really.
not get sick

amusing things for sunday nights

back in chicago after fabulous long weekend in minnesota. ill write more about it later - right now i need to catch up on some reading. but something to amuse



(thanks projectrungay!)

The Eyre Affair

Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair:

Fforde's first book in the Thursday Next series, welcome to an alternate England where there's a division of the local police dedicated to making sure that people don't publish erroneous copies of classic literature, charlotte bronte's home is a major tourist attraction, and the major debate in society is over who wrote shakespeare's plays (as opposed to religion, politics, etc). Thursday's father is in the Chronoguard and no one ever knows when he's going to show up or how old he'll be. Her uncle is a famous inventor named Mycroft who develops a machine that lets people travel inside books and Thursday's job gets much more interesting. Someone uses the machine to get inside the original manuscript of Jane Eyre and kidnaps, well, Jane! Thursday has to get her back, battling psychopaths and evil corporations in the meantime, before Bronte's masterpiece is destroyed forever.

I love Fforde's writing. he's hilarious and makes the reader feel like she's in on the joke - the books are full of references to literature of all sorts and Thursday's full of snarky comments. the sequels are great fun as well, though i think this first is still my favorite. and cricket is the most popular competitive sport. of course. shoot em up action adventure with austen and dickens references. and rocky horror style renditions of king lear.

The Time Traveler's Wife

for today: Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. Beautiful romance that KRB adores and i enjoyed thoroughly, even if it's not quite as high on my list as hers. it is a gorgeous piece of writing and a highly original tale of enduring love, despite a rather odd situation. Henry De Tamble is a librarian at the Newberry in Chicago who finds himself jumping in and out of time, without any say in the matter. He meets and falls in love with Clare, and while she continues forward in normal time, he is often out of sync and thus with extra knowledge or lack of information about what is going on. i don't remember why it was that i didn't adore this book as much as i'd hoped - probably expectations set too early - but it is a wonderful lazy afternoon read. despite the premise, don't worry about it being all sci-fi - Henry and Clare are too wonderful to worry about that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

well, i don't know of any thanksgiving books... instead, my favorite cranberry recipes, one of which i am having this tday, the other of which i'll have to wait for til i get home. why do we only eat cranberries at the holidays? they're wonderful and such a pretty color!

Pumpkin Cranberry Bread (recipe care of KRB and what i made for KS's family as a thank you)

In one bowl, mix 2 1/2 cups flour, 2tsp baking powder, 1tbs pumpkin pie spice, and 1/2tsp salt.
In another bowl, mix 2 eggs, 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup oil, 15oz can pumpkin. Mix the two together and fold in 1 cup cranberries. Pour into two loaf pans and bake at 350 for 60 minutes.

Resist if you can! having to wrap the loaves up instead of eating them right away was terribly difficult...




Orange Cranberry Relish


1 bag cranberries, 1 orange (peel and all), 1 cup sugar. put through food processor. enjoy. So much better than the canned stuff. so gorgeous. so tart and sunny in your mouth. add more sugar if necessary.

hope everyone is warm and cozy and full of good food and love, or will be soon

posts for the holidays...

alright. so hopefully this works. i'm heading up to MN for the holidays and am planning ahead by putting some posts in draft form. i will do my best to post them each day, but if it doesn't happen, i apologize. but the book thing should be conducive to this, right?

so for the first one:

Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted



this is another of the books that sits by my bed. well, it did til it got lost in the mail somewhere to my great chagrin. another cinderella story - Ella's under a curse to be obedient, a curse that only her fairy godmother Mandy knows about, as Ella's mother made her promise never to tell anyone before she passed away. therefore, the wicked step mother and stepsisters, off to finishing school, adventures in trying to find the fairy who cursed her and, of course, falling in love with the prince.

someone made a horrible movie of this with Anne Hathaway (whom i love) a few years ago that has very little to do with the book. the book is all about Ella learning about herself, finding the courage within herself to break the curse, growing through the challenges she faces and being a very smart young woman who refuses to give up but always has the help of a friend or two along the way, despite her neglectful father and dead mom. the movie tries to make it all political by turning cary elwes into the evil prince regent who is enslaving the elves etc.

another good girl empowerment book (guess i read a lot of these, don't i?) with enough romance and adventure to keep you going, but definitely appropriate for younger girls. just dont see the movie.

first comes love, then comes....

"A Political Marriage that Never Quite Fit"

isn't that just the perfect headline for that image? i haven't read the article yet, but i just love the photo.

this will not be me

i will find a tenure track position. i will not be teaching at 5 different schools. i will succeed.

nytimes scares me sometimes....

if i had a million dollars...

when i next have money to burn on making my apartment feel like a home/when i move into a smaller, one person apartment next year and really decorate, i will fill it with the following:



and


which would go wonderfully on my love seats

for my walls, a series of prints from here, framed.








dishes from here:





lanterns like this:

and carry an umbrella like that:



and just because, i'll put this on my toilet:


or maybe not....

etsy is a very dangerous thing.

oooops

well, i haven't gone to sleep yet, so it still counts as today. right?
sorry. no book today... i can't get a book out tonight. i've spent the last four hours going through new york times ads from the 1930s looking for travel advertisements for guatemala.... a few of my favorite finds....





and, though it's not to do with travel, it does have the word guatemala in it!

ch-ch-ch-changes

i'm staring birth control pills for the first time ever today. nothing fancy, orthotricyclene low - the ones they'll sell students for $10 a pack to keep us from getting preggers. have decided that 8pm is as good a time as any to take them and have set my cell phone to remind me at least for the next couple days.

i'm a bit worried about this actually. ive just had so many friends for whom birth control has been horrible - weight gain (apparently it's cause the meds increase appetite), break outs, awful mood swings/depression, etc - and i really can't deal with any of those. my doctor told me that i should stay on them for at least 3 months before trying to change, as that's how long my body might take to get used to them, but if i start freaking out, i'm going to go see my friends at the clinic over christmas.

mostly this worry comes from the fact that i'm taking these not so much because i'm having sex - which i'm not and am not likely to anytime soon, though i do want to be safe in case it does happen (please?) - but because of the wretched ups and downs i've been having along with pms (remember those posts from earlier this week?). i'd rather just take one pill that'll keep me from getting preggers to boot than start taking something for my anxiety, too. i know it's a long shot, but if it doesn't help or makes things worse, i'm going to keep trying other brands until something does. i'd ask for recommendations, but apparently everyone's body reacts differently. sigh. dumb hormones.

so we'll see! here goes nothing!

Cold Comfort Farm

Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm (1932) -



Cold Comfort Farm is set in the 1920s countryside, where Miss Flora Poste has gone to live with distant relatives, chosen for their eccentricity, after the death of her cultured and aristocratic parents. A bit of an Austen tale - Flora wants to write a modern version of Persuasion when she's 53 and intends to spend her life til then collecting material - she takes on the Starkadder family of Cold Comfort Farm as a project to keep her occupied until a husband shows up.

Witty, bubbly, and somewhat in the vein of a feminine Evelyn Waugh without the alcoholism, it's a cheery romp that plays off of all sorts of romantic cliches - eccentric aunt who refuses to leave her room and holds the family in an iron grip, the wil o' the wisp daughter in love with a local gentleman, the hunky talkie loving son, and the awful sex obsessed wannabe novelist who insists on pursuing Flora. Kate Beckinsale is perfect in the part and the aesthetic of the movie is so wonderfully eclectic, romantic, and just silly. as the amazon summary says, the cows are named Feckless, Aimless, Pointless, and Graceless. how much better than that can you get?

upcoming adventures

if i haven't mentioned how excited i am about my upcoming trips lately, whoops. cause it's all i think about these days.

for thanksgiving i'm heading north to minnesota with ks and two first year guys she's also adopted for the holiday. we're leaving weds after i finish up seminar and driving to winona - five to six hours - for a weekend that will include, according to ks, "a trip there includes taking a hunting boat across the river to some bars on the Wisconsin side in the middle of the night;" "the Turkey Bowl, which is a football (the American kind) contest held annually by my extended family on Thanksgiving Day. You do not need to be good at football or even know how to play the game to participate. Also, if someone passes the ball to anyone under the age of 8, it is an unspoken rule that you will pretend to run very hard after them but let them score the touchdown anyway;" and any/all of the following: "bowling, drinking, spending time with my cousins, drinking with my cousins, drinking with people from my high school, sleeping, and eating the best doughnuts you've ever had." sounds like a good time to me! food, drink, family, games, more food and drink....

then, in a little less than three weeks now, i'm heading back east to see all sorts of friends before going back to california for the holidays. stops to include: cambridge, maybe new haven, new york, and dc. three to four days in each place (not including new haven - that'll just be a night if i do stop), many many people to see, a ball!, either the rockettes or the nutcracker, more drinking, more eating, and all the people i love. i talk to someone i'm going to see most days online and each one makes me more excited.

it's not that i don't love being here (i do and more so each day, despite desperate posts), it's just that the people i'm going to see were my life for four years and just know me so much better than people here. mostly of course, its theater people - boardlove! -, but i'm also going to see my cty crowd for the first time in one place since 2004 - somehow they've all ended up in the dc area, aside from me of course -, and rs. rs! who i talk to pretty much every day on gchat, but who i'm going to get to see! and stay with! rs! hurrah!

something else i've been thinking about lately: i talk a lot more here than i have ever before in my life. in class, with friends, i'm chatty. i'm sometimes clever, sometimes snarky - "like the surveyors she was writing about, she didn't venture more than a mile from the border they were drawing." but mostly, i just pipe up more frequently. which, i think, more than anything, shows that this is a good place for me. everywhere else in my life, i've been the listener, the nodder, the ear to unburden to, and it's not that i don't have quiet moments, that there aren't places where i have nothing to say, but that i'm much more willing to interject now. and i love it. who knows what'll happen when i'm back amongst my boisterous friends who are used to quiet me. have i actually changed, or is it just that people here don't like to hear their own voices as much as my friends elsewhere?

Tamora Pierce

alright, confession. this is what i wish i was reading tonight. and i reread them all over the summer... heh. anyways. Tamora Pierce's Tortall series... well, four of them at this point that i've read....

start with the song of the lioness quartet, then the wild magic quartet, then protector of the small, and the daughter of the lioness books. i guess that's the chronological order of them... girl power books set in magical land of tortall... all starts when alanna switches places with her twin brother thom so that she can learn to be aknight shile he learns to be a sorcerer. she disguises herself as a boy, befriends the prince and his great friends, and works harder than anyone else at the palace to earn her place. the other series are all in the same vein - girls/women doing something new, proving their place in male dominated worlds, and changing things for the better. fast paced stories, great friendships, magical creatures, good and evil, conniving enemies, and tons of fun. she has another set of books for younger books - the circle of magic - which i don't like quite as well, but these ones are well worn and have a well-deserved place on my shelves. great for your 5th-7th grade niece/daughter/friend or good to get out of the library for a fun afternoon's indulgence. really, though, well worth the time for some brainless reading for adults, good empowerment reading for girls.

plus, look at the cool covers for the protector of the small series:

It's Noah!!!

This guy is the sweetest, funniest, most talented person i've met in a long time. and he's huge. making costumes for this guy was ridiculous. he's got a 50" chest. but he sings like a nightingale both in tenor and soprano ranges. he was our ralph rackstraw last year in pinafore and when he descended from the sky on a ladder singing and swinging, everyone went crazy. he also sweats like a pig and requires lots of laundry, but he's so willing to help out that it didn't really matter.


if you can't guess which one he is, well.... and listen to the little clip on the article - ignore the dumb harvard jocks - and remember that this is him after playing a football game. there's also a better bit at the end with an orchestra (not so hot) and all. sadly, i don't think he's in mikado this year.... oh well... i hope he gets to sing from here on out.

men who love sidney bristow

am i horribly lame for really enjoying the fact that i'm spending my friday night at home with indian take out, a big glass of wine, and men who love sydney bristow (aka alias)? cause it's highly enjoyable. rp started rewatching the first season a couple weeks in and i jumped in maybe 5 episodes in, so now that she's gone, i've gone back to the very beginning. so much fun. so much better than united fruit and even the pretty photo album style guide books i checked out today.

and boy do i love the men who love sydney bristow. oh vaughn.... oh will.... come love me!

and while i'll never understand why sydney always has her hair down (this is a problem i have with most female super hero/super spy types - doesn't it get in the way!?!?), she does get to wear some pretty cool get ups and use some awesome gadgets. and i really want her house and her wine glasses.

also, bought the black patagonia coat. should be on its way soon. very excited. and looked at myself in a window the other day in passing and i actually looked grown up. it was weird.

lazy bum says good night

that's me tonight. i have stacks of books on the floor next to me. and i have not touched them. i have been watching tv and eating indian take out in my pjs for the past 4 hours. dumb. dumb. dumb. i have so much that i should get done this weekend, especially if i want to enjoy my thanksgiving break and not bring a dozen books with me. so, as usual on friday's (sorry if you're getting sick of it), i'm writing about how i'm planning to do lots of work this weekend. if possible, i'd like to at least write a couple paragraphs.... what i have to turn in in a little less than three weeks is fifteen pages of secondary research. i can throw in some primary stuff if i'd like to, but i think i'll probably just stick with secondary, as there are so many facets of the project i need to work through there, first.

yesterday was n's birthday. i called him twice - once before school and once after dinner. i'm so proud of him... he's such an amazing kid. really. i told js about him, about the accident while she was driving me home after dinner with a visiting prof last night. it felt right - i was more excited about his birthday than is maybe normal for an older sister - and she's the first person here who i've felt comfortable enough with to open up about that. she didn't over react, she just let me tell the story, and understood why his birthday is such a big deal. because it is. he's nineteen. and he's going to be twenty nine. and thirty nine. and it might not have happened. so happy birthday wonder brother.

Dingley Falls

i think this was the best book i read this summer. Michael Malone's Dingley Falls:



it's a quirky small town portrait wrapped up in a mystery... patrician connecticut is shaken up when violently hateful letters start appearing in people's mail boxes and perfectly healthy people of all ages begin dying mysteriously. an amazing cast of characters, all wonderfully complicated and conflicted who, without ever seeming saccharine, get their just desserts. it's a hilarious book, but not a comedy, and a sad book, but not a tragedy. and Malone's writing is just dazzling. i just inhaled this book because his prose skips across the page and i just couldn't stop.

the book is set in 1976 and dingley falls is a cross section of old and young, straight laced, hippy, avant garde and precocious, not necessarily where you expect to find it. a wonderful quartet of society matrons finds themselves in an uproar when one runs off with a visiting beat poet. girls on the edge of becoming teens, experimenting, wanting to jump in the convertible but also depending on the advice of the local priest and very close with their fathers. a batty old woman, last in the line of the dingley founding family, who swears she's seeing strange flashes in the forest.

npr has an excerpt here

jutting breasts

"You don’t even have to wait for the flying spears and airborne bodies that — if you watch the movie in one of the hundreds of theaters equipped with 3-D projection — will look as if they’re hurtling directly at your head. You could poke your eye out with one of those things! Which is precisely what I thought when I first saw Ms. Jolie’s jutting breasts too."

“Beowulf” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Gory violence and a naked Angelina Jolie avatar.


rp and i have committed to not seeing this movie (apparently the giggles i post are for movies i don't want to see). but we are cracking up over this review. thank you nytimes.

The Egypt Game

another childhood favorite, that i actually hadn't thought about in a long time...


Zipha Keatley Snyder's wonderful story about a game of pretend that goes too far. i loved all things egypt as a child, still do in a very romanticized way, and this book was the perfect manifestation of all that fascination. a wonderful play of characters - children from diverse families and backgrounds who come together because of their love of egyptian mythology. together, they make their own imaginary world in an empty lot. it's a reminder of the wonders that can be achieved with an empty shed, some junk antiques, and a lot of pretend. i still love playing pretend, and this book adds that great bit of mystery and investigative digging that made any imagination game so much better.

great book for 3rd - 6th graders, at least as far as i remember it. wonderful adventure story of collaboration and making the most of what you have.

Austenland

here's something i'll probably try to find for my next plane ride/during winter break (when i let myself indulge in chick lit)


30 something girl's aunt leaves her a trip to Pembrook Place, a resort where everything and everyone looks and lives like an Austen novel. sounds like perfect escapism to me.

i'm not always the biggest fan of austen sequels or the like, but sometimes, when i go in without any expectations and just want a distraction, i'm pleasantly surprised. At the end of the summer, my mom gave me Linda Berdoll's Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, an utterly delightful, rather raunchy sequel to p&p. more than rather raunchy. very sexy. seems that people either loved it or hated it on amazon. if you're not expecting it, it's more than a little startling, but hey, sometimes a good romance novel sex scene is great, especially when stuck in a fun story.

how i've missed you

it's everything i remembered, everything that has been missing! well, okay, not quite everything, but so goooooooooooood.

i'll comment later, for those wonderful west coast people who haven't seen it yet/my friends who i know won't get a chance to watch for a couple days. but i can safely say that the skill level this season is incredible, even if the design aesthetic isn't all that exciting yet. but from past experience, people get more creative when they're forced to, and since i can only imagine what sort of wacky ideas the magic elves are coming up with this season, i'm hoping that happens soon! heidi is adorable, tim is my favorite, and ninagarcia/orangeman are their usual semi entertaining selves. i do think that watching the judges faces is one of the best parts of the show.

plenty of characters, and i totally predicted (earlier today on the tressemme fantasy runway site) who was going to get kicked off. so hah. didn't get the winner though.... second choice.

anyways. happy place!

three hours, one class til prunway! so excited. i'll report back later.

i'm getting worse at this....

sorry - i know it's past midnight in chicago and thus technically the 14th, not the 13th, but here it is anyways. and cheating a bit again because it's the book i finished today for seminar. but it's actually really really interesting and a very well written history.
George Reid Andrews Blacks and Whites in Sao Paulo Brazil, 1888-1988.


debunking the myth of racial democracy. investigating social, economic, religious, political racism in brazil from emancipation to its centennial and destroying theories that continued inequalities are based solely on the remnants of slavery. intriguing, concise, to the point, and very well documented in a book that is both historical and anthropological. very very cool. enjoy!

walking in a winter wonderland...

well, it's definitely not winter yet here, but i'm realizing that a new down coat may be in order this year. i have a wonderful wool coat and survived college with that and lots of layers, but i don't know that it's enough for chicago winters. aside from style, i'm debating color - black, brown, green? soo.... advice on the following is welcome!

from patagonia W's down with it parka ($249), also comes in brown and pale blue:

Mountain Hardware Downtown Coat ($235); also in brown:

North Face transit jacket ($229), also in brown:

Cloudveil Oslo Jacket ($280), also in brown and pearl:


And the one i'd set my heart on until it turns out it's no longer available in my size,

Land's End Chevron Coat ($140), in lots of nice colors - i like the green brown and black

i might try a different size, just because it's the least expensive but still has same fill quality (or better) and nice colors and is apparently very water resistant. anyone have any experience with land's end down?

Fading Hopes

"Wang got the news in a voice-mail message. “I just don’t understand why the U.S. Olympic Committee won’t push for me,” she said. “How can there only be one person representing all of North and South America?”"


well, this is both a giggle and a disappointment. i got so excited last night when the nytimes homepage had a link to an article about rhythmic gymnastics under the sports subtitle. must be a very slow day in sports for my beloved discipline to make the homepage. so that was a hurrah! notice for rsg! but then i read the article and realized that in the long run it means even less notice - without an athlete in the competition it means its highly doubtful that the networks will show any rsg during their broadcasts. damn it!

on the article itself, i do find it a little ridiculous that they managed to get such a horrible shot of lisa for the top of the page. really - i'm sure she did many an impressive thing while the photographer was there - why show something so ungainly and ugly?

also - the us trying to get one of the tripartite commission spots for countries that send small delegations? hahahahah i can totally see why the us olympic committee wouldn't go for it, even if it makes me sad. lisa is a very good gymnast - she was competing back when i was still coaching and we saw her a few times. i can't believe she's only 19 and admitting that her olympic dreams are crushed, but it really is true. there's very little chance of a 23 yr old gymnast competing.

it's a beautiful sport that has ruined my back and hips for life, but i still wish it got more attention here in the states. so long as it stays in the olympics - there are always calls to cut it out in favor of something else, mostly coming from the us where it is little known despite its huge popularity in europe and parts of asia - i'll be okay. and i just have to hope that wherever i am next summer is more interested than people here so i can see at least some of the competition.

can't think tonight

too much reading to do and brain too dead to do even a brief write up (pastitsio was a procrastination technique but well worth the effort - see below - and no, i didn't eat all of that; RP helped)

before:

after:



so posting a couple cookbooks that are favorites instead

my mom's two mexican cooking bibles:




childhood favorite:


and of course

i cant remember the name of the greek cook book she uses, but i'll find it someday

Pastitsio

Favorite recipe to make me feel better. It's in the oven now and smells sooooo good. I'll post a pic later, or at least i'll try to if i can keep myself from digging in long enough.

the recipe is from my mom's greek cooking cookbook and i stick to it pretty closely, though tonight i cut everything in half as i really don't need all the calories that would come from eating this much over the week. so long as i alternate with my pozole, it should be okay.
i generally add more nutmeg than called for, but that's just me! enjoy!

Pastitsio

1 lb long macaroni
4 tbs butter
¾ cup grated parmesan cheese
¼ tsp nutmeg
salt and pepper
3 eggs, lightly beaten

Meat Sauce:
1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tbs butter
1.5 lb ground beef
¼ cup tomato paste
½ cup dry red or white wine
½ cup stock
2 tbs chopped parsley
½ tsp sugar
salt and pepper

Cream Sauce:
1/3 cup butter
½ cup flour
3 cups milk
¼ tsp nutmeg
salt and pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten

1. Cook macaroni in boiling, salted water until just tender. Drain and return to pan.
2. Melt butter until golden brown and pour over macaroni. Add ½ cup of the cheese, the nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste and toss well. Leave until cool, add eggs and toss again. Keep aside.
3. Make meat sauce. Gently fry onion and garlic in butter until onion is soft, increase heat and add ground beef. Stir well and cook until meat begins to brown.
4. Add remaining eat sauce ingredients, cover and simmer over gentle heat for 20 min
5. Make cream sauce. Melt butter in a saucepan, stir in flour and cook gently for 2 min. Add milk all at once and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil gently for 1 minute
6. Add nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste and cool a little before stirring in beaten egg.
7. Add ½ cup o this sauce to the cooked meat sauce.
8. To assemble Pastitsio, butter a 33x23x8 cm oven dish. Spoon half of the prepared macaroni evenly in the base and top with the meat sauce. Cover with remaining macaroni, leveling top.
9. Pour on cream sauce and spread to completely cover macaroni. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top and cook in a moderate oven for 50 min until golden brown.
Let stand for 10 min before cutting into squares to serve

green with envy

"Dear reader! Should this column impress you as being more than usually lyrical, recalling perhaps the imagery and elegance of poetry by Baudelaire or Verlaine; should it seem a bit decadent, redolent of Oscar Wilde’s withering hauteur; should it have a touch of madness or perversity, combining, say, the tastes of Toulouse-Lautrec with the passions of van Gogh; should it simply sound direct and forceful and knowing like one of Ernest Hemingway’s characters; should it do any or all of that, let me credit something that each of these figures fervently paid tribute to: the green fairy, the green goddess, the green muse, the glaucous witch, the queen of poisons."

what is an exclamation point doing in the nytimes??? i have always wanted to try absinthe, actually...

my moon my man...

realizing i haven't actually written anything about myself in a few days.

i'm feeling a little defeated and exhausted. started with a horrible meeting about my seminar paper with mauricio friday morning and not sleeping well for the past who knows how long and especially last night have just left me drained. meeting with dain this morning re the same paper went much better, but only after spending the weekend on extensive database/catalog/journal searches and all last night thinking about what i was going to say today. lasted an hour, left me feeling like i have immense amounts of work to do, but in a positive way. unlike after mauricio, when i felt like i hadn't done anything right and needed to start over because my project had no legs to stand on. it's the difference between a good advisor and a bad one.

but even a positive meeting with dain couldn't make up for the fact that i only slept about 3 hours last night. lying awake in bed is good for thoughts about the future, thoughts about this dumb paper, and thoughts about how much nicer lying awake in bed would be if i had someone to do it with. three of my best friends from college have all found someone in the past few months, which makes it all a little more difficult. we all ivideo chatted on sunday morning - xwn from singapore, cs from morocco, rs from new york, and it was brought up briefly, jokingly, as things like that always are because more would be awkward. i'm terribly happy for them, but i'm feeling lonely. despite the really having friends who i have fun with now - like friday night - and the feeling so much more at home here. it's just that i'm 22 and starting to feel left behind.

being an academic is not necessarily conducive to being social. that's something we all know and something we try to combat with our occasional dinner parties/movie outings/shopping trips. but it's not something you do if you're a socially needy person. and generally, i'm not. i enjoy time by myself. i enjoy time with my books. but i would also enjoy meeting men and finding someone to share with.

these friends with new others are the same ones (amongst many) who have always predicted i'd be the first one married with kids. it's still a possibility - i mean, we just graduated in june and none of these new relationships seem headed that way yet - but i also don't want to marry the first man i seriously date. at least i think i don't - shouldn't i have more experience, see what's out there, have my heart broken, grow before i end up committed? maybe in an ideal world i wouldn't have to. but i feel like i'd be missing out on something essential if i didn't. does that make any sense?

now out of college, it doesn't feel like it's such an option - dating without long term expectations is something you do in your teens. of course i have the example of my parents who didnt start dating til they were 34 and 32 to show me that sometimes things take a while. but somehow, post-college, things just feel like they should be more substantial, more consequential. damn the big h and its lack of a dating scene. damn my sisterly/motherly attitudes all through high school and college.

and now i have to get back to reading. as usual.

Cane

today, from my freshman writing class, Jean Toomer's Cane


written in 1923, this is a beautiful, complex collage of sketches, poems, and prose that has become a touchstone of African American literature. the course i read it for was on southern writers and rethinking the ways we read them. i don't remember anything about our discussion, and i dont really remember much about the other things we read, but this book stuck with me. apparently, toomer didnt end up writing much else of note after this, but this is credited as one of the first works of the harlem renaissance. it's confusing and elusive and doesn't generally lead anywhere or answer any questions, but the imagery it draws up is incredible.

Reapers. from Cane. Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones In their hip-pockets as a thing that's done, And start their silent swinging, one by one. Black horses drive a mower through the weeds, And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds. His belly close to ground. I see the blade. Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.

Pozole

something new with tomatillos. picante and limey and wonderful - just dont eat the jalepeno slices. i ddint have hominy, so i added a potato and some zucchini instead. good with quesadillas. probably very good as a first course, but i'm eating it for the next week as lunch/dinner. mmmmmm

Ingredients

object2=">1 pound tomatillos
object2=">6 cups chicken stock
object2=">2 cups chopped onion
object2=">3 pounds chicken breast halves, skinned
object2=">4 garlic cloves, chopped
object2=">2 jalapeño peppers, seeded and quartered
object2=">1 (30-ounce) can white hominy, drained
object2=">1 teaspoon salt
object2=">1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
object2=">1/4 cup reduced-fat sour cream
object2=">8 lime wedges

Preparation

Discard husks and stems from the tomatillos. Cook whole tomatillos in boiling water 10 minutes or until tender; drain. Place tomatillos in a blender; process until smooth; set aside.

Place stock and the next 5 ingredients (stock through hominy) in a large stockpot; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 35 minutes or until chicken is done. Remove chicken from bones; shred. Stir in pureed tomatillos and salt; cook for 5 minutes or until heated. Stir in chicken, and serve with cilantro, sour cream, and lime wedges.

reaching for it

"First of all: Everyone is potentially an outlaw, and everyone who takes action is effectively an outlaw. Second: Success will probably lead to ruin. Third: It’s a jungle or perhaps a desert out there, and barring a horse your only friend is your shadow. Fourth: You can parley with a major villain, but beware of spear carriers. Fifth: Violence is continuous, and the absence of gunfire can only mean that an even greater explosion is due in a few minutes."

so they're not exactly giggles today, but the nytimes never disappoints. maybe i'll find a giggle later.

And also the beautiful photo shoot celebrating the Coen brothers' movies and actors

The Talking Eggs

one of my favorite picture books:
Robert D. San Souci's The Talking Eggs. Cinderella-esque story set in Louisiana - Blanche is the neglected/abused younger sister who befriends an old grandma in the woods and, with her help, tricks her mom and older sister into choosing the wrong eggs and getting stings and burns instead of beautiful clothes and riches.

back to the fairy tales, i suppose, and also to my beloved 6th grade teacher who had a Cinderella unit for about a month, wherein we read as many Cinderella stories, from as many different cultures as we could, wrote comparative papers, wrote our own stories and plays and made various pieces of art. I'll probably end up writing about another of the books i discovered during that unit later, but this was actually one i'd had since i was little. probably up there with Captain Ogeereadmore as the books i requested for bedtime the most when i was little. more empowering than traditional cinderella and beautiful illustrations... the dog ate a corner of our copy and i was so unhappy, because every bit of the page is covered in gorgeous detail.

strike!

"On the far side of the alley is a gigantic American flag draped across the exposed brick. Since the rest of the décor is such a consciously ironic throwback to Midwestern working-class haunts, it’s unclear if the patriotism is meant earnestly. Considering the varied clientele, the precise level of sincerity is impossible to gauge."

nytimes giggle of the day. actually, it's in tomorrow's times, but it's online already, so it counts.

i love bowling. seriously loooooove bowling. especially when it includes the option for beer. the two bowling alleys at home are definitely down home "working-class haunts" with pitchers of cheap beer and lots of truck drivers shooting pool. but when we go, of course we go all hipster. and generally fail miserably at breaking 100. during senior week last year, a bunch of us found a place in jamaica plain in boston that was more in the hipster vein of things, a little more conscious of its appeal, decked out in vintage art with sangria and a tapas style menu. also much fun, if a little more expensive. there are a couple bowling alleys that i've walked past here, but they all look upscale and shiny and very expensive. plus, i'm not sure how into bowling my friends here are. wish i'd found the place in jp earlier in college so we could have gone more often, but i'll always know it's there. and when i'm in brooklyn, maybe i can convince rs etc to go bowling with me. but only if we can get a lane.

if you're in boston and want a fun place to dance/chill/bowl:


of course, being boston, it's candlepin bowling

friday night and feelin' alright

so what is it that first year history phd students do on a friday night? get together, drink lots of wine, discuss why we ended up in grad school, eat the shepherd's pie that someone's boyfriend made and the bagged salad someone else brought, and watch 3+ hours of shot at love with tila tequila. yes. we are cultured and intelligent and together and had way too much fun with that trashy show. ;) and at the end of it i had my first hug from anyone in a few weeks from SC (gay americanist boy who i'm going to KS's with for thanksgiving - very loud and loveable) and apparently i squeezed too tight. my friends at home and school are all about the tight squeezes. sigh.... missing those hugs right now. falling asleep to sleepless in seattle.

Decline and Fall of the Lettered City

today's book goes back to wonderful historical books that have influenced the way i do research

Jean Franco's Decline and Fall of the Lettered City is a cultural study of Latin America during the Cold War. It illuminates the political and cultural projects of the United States and Latin American governments as channeled through artistic luminaries and as combated by the same men and women. It is a colorful and intriguing history that opens up many further channels of studies while still seeming like a complete story in and of itself. If you're interested in how Latin American politics, revolutions, and cultural developments, especially things like the literary Boom were often manifestations of US capital investment, this is a great book for it. Jean Franco is an influential cultural and literary theorist with a very clear and coherent voice that draws together multiple national stories without victimizing Latin America or villainizing the US to the degree that many book on Latin America in the Cold War do. Good book. Beloved of my thesis advisor. and now me!

i love cliff

just watched my weekly dose of ugly betty/grey's anatomy (didn't get it last night cause i was chasing B & Z to get them into the bath. blarg) all i can say, both shows are rather blah right now but i love love love marc's new boyfriend cliff.


isn't he the cutest? and he's the only character who is acting even vaguely sensible on the show right now. even if it means pursuing marc.... of course, in doing so and getting marc to show unknown depth, he's making me love marc more too!

grey's is just obnoxious at the moment, but i keep watching cause i just can't stop. sigh. but let's just look at how adorable david blue is again!